The Cradle Snatcher - Book cover

The Cradle Snatcher

Shannon Whaley

Modus Operandi

Lennoxive got something else
Lennoxyou guys need to come back
Ryderbe there in five

Thirty Minutes Before

MARK LENNOX

Flesh is just flesh.

Blood is just blood.

Bones are just bones.

Matter is matter is matter is matter…

Mark had developed this chant back in medical school. He’d recite it to himself when a particularly gruesome corpse would make him feel queasy. Or devastated. Or both.

And it usually helped. During his eight years as the chief medical examiner of his precinct, he had only thrown up once and cried twice.

But as he stood over Isabelle Mackintosh’s ravaged body, he wanted to do both.

Mark carried on. He had to run all the necessary tests so Isabelle could get the justice she deserved.

Mark swabbed and sliced and picked and scraped while the chant circled relentlessly in his head.

Matter is matter is matter is—

But no.

This wasn’t just a collection of particles to be examined. This was someone’s child. Some dad’s little girl.

The happiest day of Mark’s life had come eight months ago, when his wife Cassie told him that, after three years of trying, she was finally pregnant. He was weeks away from being a father himself.

Such joy at the time, but now?

Dread and fear.

How could he protect an innocent life from this cruel world? And what if he wasn’t able to? Could he ever forgive himself?

Don’t go there.

He forced his mind back to the task at hand.

Flesh is just flesh is just—

An hour into the exam, he was still unable to find even one shred of DNA on the girl’s body.

How is that possible for such a violent assault?

Was the perp wearing a goddamn hazmat suit?

His heart sank even deeper into his stomach when he confirmed that there was, in fact, trauma inflicted on the girl’s genitalia.

That sick son of a bitch.

I’d like to see him on this table. I wouldn’t be using my scalpel so gently.

He texted Ryder and Phillips back into his lab to tell them the news.

“How could anything be worse than the amateur stomach art?” Phillips asked once they were there.

“He raped her, postmortem,” Mark replied, his words dropping like a bomb.

He looked at Ryder and Phillips, who were both digesting what they had just heard.

Phillips hunched over and placed his hands on his knees. He looked like he was about to be sick.

Ryder ran her fingers through her hair, as she always did. But her fingers tangled in it.

This case just kept getting more twisted. And there were still more tests to be done.

Blood is just blood…

LAUREN RYDER

As Lauren updated him about the Mackintosh case, Hale tapped his fingernails on his desk, the pace continually increasing.

“Tell me some good news. Do you have any leads?” he asked.

Lauren shook her head dejectedly.

“We’re heading to the house in a bit to have a second look around and ask more questions. But they don’t seem like the type to have any enemies. They’re just a sweet, normal family.”

“It goes without saying that this is officially the top priority. We can’t let him strike again. Keep on it, Ryder.”

Lauren nodded and turned to leave.

“Unless…”

“What?” Lauren asked, whipping back around to face her lieutenant.

“I know you have a niece around the same age. Emma, right?”

“So?”

“So…if this starts hitting too close to home we can assign—”

“No, sir. My investment in this case is strictly professional.”

He gave her a knowing look. “Ryder, those lines have blurred in the past. It might happen again.”

“Please, trust me. I’m better now. And I need to solve this one.”

“I do trust you, Ryder. But you know my door is always open if you need to talk.”

“I know that.”

“Take care of yourself. And don’t forget the conditions of keeping your badge. You may enforce the law, but you’re not above it,” he said.

Lauren ran her fingers through her hair. She desperately wanted to object, but she respected Hale too much to do so.

“I will, sir. I promise.”

She walked out of his office and directly into the precinct kitchen.

Hale’s concern made her realize that she hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours—since before Isabelle’s body was found.

She hadn’t even noticed that her stomach was growling and her head was pounding.

Lauren inhaled half a bagel with cream cheese, washed it down with a long glug of stale coffee, and ran off to find Phillips.

It was early in the morning, but they needed to get down to the Mackintosh apartment to find something—anything—that she could latch onto and run with.

STEVE PHILLIPS

Soft pink walls. Pristine white sheets. A green, fluffy rug. A stuffed animal collection that filled floor-to-ceiling shelves.

Angela told Phillips that Isabelle had designed the room herself. They went to Home Depot and looked at every single swatch of pink until they found the perfect one. The chosen shade was called Pastel Princess.

As Angela talked, she alternated frantically between laughing and crying. Out in the living room, Isabelle’s father, Mike, stood dully. His hands hung at his sides.

It was futile to try to keep up with his notes. Phillips closed his notebook and just folded his hands in front of him, trying to project calm.

Phillips led the mother out the door and sat down with her in the living room while Laura continued to look around. As far as he could tell, not a single item in Isabelle's bedroom was out of place.

The killer really had managed to sneak in and grab the child without leaving any imprint, like a phantom.

As Lauren walked out of the room, Phillips heard the floorboards creak loudly under the detective’s feet.

Yet the noise didn’t wake the parents.

“Is there anyone else who has a key to this apartment?” Lauren asked Mike, the father.

Phillips noted that Mike Mackintosh was a man of few words. Or maybe the circumstances under which they’d met had made him that way. There was no way to be sure.

“Our cleaning lady Marta has one,” Mike said flatly, his sunken eyes and unshaven face turning in the direction of the kitchen. Phillips and Lauren followed his gaze.

Leaving the mother where she sat, Phillips took the lead on questioning Marta, switching to Spanish.

LAUREN RYDER

Lauren couldn’t really follow the conversation once the Spanish started. Instead, she observed Marta’s body language—something Lauren was fluent in.

The poor woman was hunched over. She clearly hadn’t slept in days. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her nose was raw: she clutched a tissue tightly in her hand.

Marta really looked as if she had just lost her own child.

“They must have been close, huh?” Lauren asked Phillips when he returned to her side.

“Yeah. She’s been with the Mackintoshes since before Isabelle was born. She watched her grow up.”

“Ouch.”

“I don’t think there’s a lead there. She’s practically family.”

“Has she ever lost her key? Or loaned it to somebody?”

“Nope,” Phillips said. Lauren could tell that the frustration was starting to get to him. A muscle jumped in his cheek.

What next?

“Let’s go find the super,” Lauren said to her partner.

STEVE PHILLIPS

As they waited for the super, Phillips allowed his mind to drift for a moment to his own home, and Melissa.

With his crazy work schedule, he didn’t spend much time at his place.

It never used to matter, back when he was single. Now—after a day like today, he looked forward to going home to his girlfriend and getting away from it all.

At the age of thirty, Phillips had just learned that he, in fact, loved scented candles. Especially the ones that smelled like freshly baked cookies.

It helped ease his mind after days like the one he was currently having.

He was already exhausted—physically and emotionally. But there was still work to be done.

The super of the Mackintoshes’ building had been out the first time the detectives had stopped by. They finally tracked down Jarvis—a short, balding man who had inherited the job from his father—in the early hours of the morning the following day.

He had a big tool belt and an even bigger key ring.

“Any chance you misplaced that thing recently?” Phillips asked, pointing at the mass of metal.

“I never let this thing out of my sight. Besides, I’m the only person who can tell which key leads to which door. Don’t even need to label them,” he said with a smug smile.

Good for you…

Phillips wanted to wipe the grin off the super’s pasty face. This was dead serious.

“What about security cameras? Got any of those?”

“Just one in the lobby—”

Phillips and Lauren perked up at this piece of information.

“—But it’s been out of ‘commish’ for a month. I keep trying to get someone from the company down here to fix it, but you know how it is…”

“No I don’t,” Phillips cut in. He was losing his patience.

“They have clients all over town. Our one little camera is not exactly a top priority. But I’ll tell them this story and maybe now it will be.”

“What’s the name of the company?” Ryder asked.

“Lockton Security. But good luck getting anywhere with them. I sat on hold for almost an hour last time I called.”

“Alright, well,” Lauren pulled out her card with her work and cell numbers on it, and handed it to Jarvis. “Call us if you hear anything.”

“Just wanna ask…You guys…you don’t suspect me, right?” Jarvis asked.

“No. Your alibi was confirmed by your wife,” Ryder said.

“And the 3,000 pictures you posted on Facebook from the Yankees game,” Phillips added.

“It was a great game! Did you catch it?”

“We’ve been a little busy,” Phillips said dryly.

The detectives returned to the elevator with more frustration and no new information. On the ride up, Phillips’s and Lauren’s phones rang at the same time. Phillips answered first.

The service was bad, and he could just barely make out the voice on the other end of the phone.

“Detect—a body—ha—fou—get down to—”

The call started to cut out. He ran out of the elevator when it opened on the lobby.

“Repeat that,” he said.

The static cleared.

“A body has been found: female, age six, in Ramon Aponte Playground. 47th Street between 8th and 9th Avenue.”

Phillips gripped his partner by the arm and pulled her toward the front door.

“Another one?” she asked, her voice breaking.

He nodded and checked the time on his phone.

Lauren gave Phillips an uneasy look. “He’s on a schedule.”

“It’s been just short of twenty-four hours since the first one,” Phillips agreed under his breath. “Let’s go.”

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